Posts Tagged: mastering fear

Learn how to master fear then put it to work. Seems so simple. Scratch that. Fear? It’s terrifying! Humans live in a world soaked in fear, always have and always will. Fear is valid, necessary and keeps us alive. Yet, fear is a double-edged blade that can harm us or take out our darkest demons.

The trick (and the treat) is making sure we’re in charge. Face fear then train that junkyard dog to be a sled dog that powers us to go the LONG distance.

We might be writers, but it doesn’t mean we’re hermetically sealed in front of a keyboard and immune from being scared sh…..witless. Life throws a lot at us. Family, bills, bad health, accidents, crises and on and on. Life is tough and no one gets out alive 😉 . Yet, while life can be tough, we can learn to be tougher.

Humans are wired for faith. We have faith in cars (that they won’t turn on us and murder us), that when we flip on a switch, lights come on instead of death by electrocution. We have faith in our 401Ks, our friends, our insurance companies. Faith is all around us and we use it so much we don’t notice. Ah, but here’s the kicker…

Fear is faith in the wrong things.

The first step to mastering fear is to redirect faith to the RIGHT things, then over time this helps develop mental toughness.

Fear is ALL Mind Over Matter

Mastering fear is fundamentally deciding what matters. Notice I used deciding. It is active. We are not flotsam, whisked along powerlessly. WE are the master of our thoughts, not the other way around. Every thought can become a choice with enough training.

Training mental toughness involves admitting we’re afraid to begin with. We can’t conquer what we deny even exists. This often requires brutal honesty with ourselves, which can hurt like hell. Yet, when we avoid our fear, it’s akin to leaving a bullet inside us and only treating the bloody, festering hole with bandages, Bactine and kale.

And no, I hadn’t thought about writing inspirational greeting cards, but now that you mention it… 😀 .

Today I want to talk about fears common to writers. We might wrestle with one or all of them at any given point. But the point of this post is you are not alone. The odd thing about fear is it likes to weak masks and, since today is Halloween, what better day to discuss fear and the masks it wears?

The Procrastination Mask

First, the BIGGIE! Many of us struggle with procrastination, and we often have a good reason for why we can’t finish the book. Someday later and down the road. We tell ourselves we can write when we finish X.

Fear might resemble our “aching need” to watch cartoons with the kids instead of revising the WIP (work in progress). We want to be a good parent. Wouldn’t want our kids growing up then using a chainsaw on us in our sleep because they believed we abandoned them?

Hmmm, better stop and make cookies for the whole class and volunteer to coach the soccer team, too. I can bring my writing to the soccer game! Genius!

Not.

Fear in this form gives all kinds of excellent reasons the writing can wait and wait and why everyone and everything else is a priority. It’s a lie. Procrastination is fear. We might be terrified we really don’t know how to write, that maybe we really don’t have a plot, that maybe we have no clue what we are doing.

Maybe we totally suck.

We might be afraid of finishing because we’re terrified of rejection. Or maybe we are afraid of success.

What if my mother thinks she’s the demon who feasts on dreams of children in my book? I mean she IS, but will she figure it out? Can she sue me? Better switch genres.

It’s easier to be a maybe-one-day-super-star than to finish and face whatever music awaits.

The Perfection Guise

Next on our list? Perfection. This flawless fatale is an excellent disguise for fear. She is the perfect mask for fear because perfect is an illusion thus, by definition, unattainable. We fail before we start.

Unmask that sucker! There’s no such thing as a perfect novel, or a perfect anything.

Someone somewhere will not like what we write, cook, wear, how we parent and on and on so learn to embrace being flawed.

Perfect is the enemy of the good, the nemesis of the finished.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts tomorrow. Can you write 50,000 words in 30 days? Many writers will start NaNo and never finish because they’ll keep going back and polishing prose. They will get and likely remain STUCK.

Yet the GOAL of NaNoWriMo is solely to put 50K words ON THE PAGE…not perfect words. The point of NaNo is to train you to think like a pro. Pros get words on page and we polish later. We write no matter what is going on in life…including cooking for holidays.

Writers WRITE.

The Indecision Disguise

We switch genres, start new projects, start a blog, stop blogging, start another. We are going to query, no self-publish, no indie. Wait. Maybe a pen name. That way no one will know if our book sucks. Maybe two pen names. Maybe witness protection would take us?

We need to think on this more.

NOPE.

Indecision is where most dreams get stuck then die. Forgotten remnants of ideas, dreams, stories stored in catacombs of computer files. Buried in unmarked graves, no one to mourn their loss other than us. We’re guilty and ashamed we left them, but didn’t know what to do, how to make it right, how to fix things so we did…nothing.

No decision is STILL a decision.

Be the BIG BOSS

Remember that final line from Labyrinth, when Sarah finally figures out why she’s been losing? How she shatters the Goblin King’s plan? One line.

You have no power over me.

Truth is, maybe your book does stink. Maybe you have no plot or any idea how the heck to have a blog or where to begin? How to keep going? Guess what?

I’ve been there! My first novel is duct taped in a box in the garage because we can’t potty train it and it bites.

I had to learn and find mentors and brace for tough truth, cry, have some chocolate and try again. I didn’t know how to write or plot. Okay, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn. I also didn’t know how to blog or the hidden mysteries of SEO and social media. I had to figure it out.

I am still figuring all of this out. Getting better each and every day by making sure I AM THE BIG BOSS. Fear? SIT! Heel!

Growing is Painful

Facing we’re inadequate hurts. Yet, we cannot learn a craft, how to be an artisan, a master by relying on theory. We need classes, we need training, but we also learn by DOING. This means, we do it afraid. We step out, fail, try again, learn, fail some more. Do it enough and fear dissipates because confidence cannot be purchased, it must be bought in blood and tears.

REMEMBER! We ALL start somewhere. It is OKAY to be new.

Regular people seem to believe writing is easy and anyone can do what we do. Don’t believe me? Seriously they are cute that they think our skills are so simple! BWA HA HA HA HA! Nope.

Exhibit A:

Hmmm. Maybe those cutbacks on actual journalists and good editors was a bad plan after all.

We are all in the same boat and, in my experience, the only writers who believe their writing is perfect are unteachable hacks. Writers plagued by self-doubt, riddled with insecurity? First get over it. But this doubt is also a really good sign you’re probably not as bad as you believe. Or, if you are? You’re teachable. No biggie. Let’s just fix it! #Duh

Now that we’ve been through the major fears and how to beat these “monsters” I’d like to finish with a treat. First, it IS Halloween (even though it’s pretty much Halloween all year in our house). If you want some AMAZING dark reads?

Reading TREATS!

The Mortician’s Daughter–One Foot in the Grave, a dark paranormal Young Adult by C.C. Hunter OUT TODAY! I could NOT put this book down. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. OMG! I’ve listened to this one at least 20 times on Audible. Brilliant, layered and Hill makes me question my own ability to write *sobs*. Finally, a staple literary horror The Prisoner of Hell Gate by Dana L. Wolff, another story best experienced on audio (though I have paper and audio for both).

What are your thoughts? Are you afraid? Did you see yourself in any of my examples? Pen names, switching genres, unable to finish, stuck in perfectionism? Welcome to being a REAL WRITER!

Share your thoughts!

I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU! And I am NOT above BRIBERY!

What do you WIN? For the month of OCTOBER, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

*****Saturday’s blog had a special contest for a free class, but I need time to go through the comments so will announce BOTH winners next post!

For subscribers, click to my site to view gallery of upcoming classes (gallery doesn’t show up for you). But here are the two biggies coming up…

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It doesn’t matter what area of life we long to improve, mindset is absolutely critical. Where we set our sights? That’s where we will go. But I get it, life is exhausting. Many of us are still on summer mode, perhaps struggling to get in gear and on a schedule.

The magic has fizzled and our flame has all but gone out. I feel your pain *fist bump* That’s why today we’re gonna dive into the deep and explore three ways to reignite that MOJO! Mojo…you know. Magic, passion, story sorcery?

That thing your kids probably drown in Cheerios and milk over summer vaca OR you put it someplace you’d remember where you put it? Yes, that.

It’s cool. You’ll be all right.

First, an illustration 😀 .

My newest favorite book is The Book of Mysteries by Jonathan Cahn, and what I like about it is there are 365 mysteries, one for each day of the year.

The Parable of the Straight Path

One of the stories in the book talks about an ancient and powerful king who promised that any man who could make it to his kingdom walking a perfectly straight line would be allowed to marry his daughter (which essentially would put the suitor in line for the crown of this vast and wealthy kingdom).

Key fact to note: The castle could be seen from all around because on top of the highest tower a large flame burned day and night.

Suitor after suitor tried and failed to complete the challenge even though the terrain was a rough, rocky, mountainous mess. They’d get there, but none managed to complete the journey walking a completely straight path.

Then, finally, one man achieved this seemingly impossible goal. The king, awestruck, asked how the young man managed to accomplish such a feat.

The suitor replied, “I set my eyes on that beacon on top of your castle and walked toward that, one foot in front of the other, no matter what.”

Yeah, it’s the Great Wall of China but work with me here. Pay attention to the FLAME.

See, the other suitors (who failed) took their eyes off the beacon and, instead, paid attention to the paths, the roads, the rocks, the thickets and thorns and hills. They focused on everything but what mattered most…the end goal.

In life, we run into this same scenario all the time. Many reading this blog have a goal of being professional authors who are paid well to do what they love.

But then we see laundry, and housework and bills, and all the KDP drama, and Amazon and the competition and on and on and on. Not only does this make for a formula to get utterly lost, it’s also a recipe to give up because we get overwhelmed.

Thus, today, I want to hand on some lessons I’ve learned through almost two decades of doing some things right, but most things wrong. Smart folks learn from their own mistakes, but wise folks learn from the mistakes of others 😉 .

#1—REMEMBER Talk is Cheap

Oh this one was a toughy for me. Still is. The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. We need to be really careful who we allow access into our lives, who we partner with for any kind of a goal. Sure, they may make promises with a silver tongue, but pay close attention to their track record.

I’ve been burned by this one so badly, I practically needed ego debridement. Remove all the damaged singed stuff and hope to heavens it healed.

Folks I delegated important matters to, knowing these people had a history of flaking out or bailing when stuff got hard. Oh, but they promised…

Yeah. Talk is cheap and your time (my time) is valuable.

I have to use this on lecture myself as well, btw. Less talking and more doing. It isn’t real until it’s on paper. Period. We want to set our goals (our MOJO) on fire…not ourselves.

#2—UNDERSTAND Failure is Priceless

Talk might be cheap but failure? Failure is priceless. Failure will teach us a million times more than success ever will. Humans are wired to learn from failure.

Not a single human has ever been born and, on Day One, could run track and quote Shakespeare (or these oddities were born, then promptly flown in black helicopters to Area 51 for study).

We learn by failing. This doesn’t apply only to babies but to all of us at all ages and in all things.

Why?

Because when we fail, often this happened because we were reaching for something beyond our current abilities. We were adding weight to the bench press machine beyond what was easy. Trying and failing and going again makes us stronger, smarter, faster and wiser.

No entrepreneur creates a juggernaut business by magically knowing all the right moves. No marriage lasts twenty or fifty or sixty years without mishaps and mistakes and pressing on through the pain.

Failure is the greatest gift we can be given.

It can show us where we are weak, strengthen what is lacking, reveal flawed ideas or tactics and help us learn better ones.

“Failure” can also reveal happy accidents, success we never actually planned in the first place. Check out this post on 10 Products Discovered by Accident, which includes but is not limited to Viagara, coffee, and chocolate chip cookies 😉 .

The odd thing about Western culture is we SAY we value innovation and breaking rules…then we send kids to school to teach them to follow rules, not to question and that failure is bad, mistakes are terrible and to avoid both at all costs. BUNK!

This means there is a lot of loser-indoctrination we need to unwire from our brains.

Fear is not always the enemy. Fear is often a sign we might be onto something…or not. But we won’t know unless we try.

So, go hit it with a stick. See what happens and if you can create a spark, then a fire, then a BLAZE. We fail. Okay, big deal. Dust off. Assess, adapt and try something new.

#3—DIVE Into the Deep

I tend to be a rather fearless (okay stupid) person. I’ve traveled to some of the most dangerous places on the planet, climbed cliffs, jumped out of planes, and even worn stretchy pants with patterns on them *shivers*.

I am not proud of that last one. Thighs like mine with patterns? Warn any epileptics. Just saying.

Anyway, I DO have a phobia of open deep water or Bathophobia. Figures I would get a phobia with a lame name. Pyrophopia? Way sexier.

But seriously. Hang me off the side of an ocean liner in the middle of the Atlantic and I’d confess everything down to the time I shoplifted bubblegum from the drug store when I was three. Heck, I’d confess to stuff I hadn’t even done just to get back on deck.

Aye, I did spake with the Devil and gaveth him cookies and he gaveth me blog ideas…

But why am I so terrified of open water? Lack of control. Who knows what is beneath me? My fairly definitive position at the top of the food chain evaporates. And my swimming skills? Are on par with Frank Horowitz from Accounting’s breakdancing skills.

As we back away from the metaphor we see that most of us are afraid of the deep. We like the shallows.

Shore is close. We have more control. We aren’t fully committed. Problem is, most of the good stuff is going to be out in the deep, the place we are most afraid to go. Where MOST OTHER people are afraid to go.

When it comes to writing (or business or love or family or sports or whatever) we need to go where others are afraid to. Where WE are afraid to because that is where the most growth will happen the fastest.

I guarantee you my swimming skills would vastly and immediately improve if tossed off the side of a Carnival ship. I would definitely be FIRED up to swim so fast Michael Phelps would be eating my wake.

We won’t (can’t) gain new skills, better skills or even mastery in the shallows. We need to go out into the deep because the deep scares us and fires our @$$es UP! Thus, today, I challenge you to define your “deep.”

Years ago, my “deep” was starting a blog. O…M…G. I was petrified.

When I started blogging, I had the skin of a grape and absolutely fell apart at any kind of criticism. Additionally, I had the self-discipline of a possessed chipmunk with a bad crack habit and unlimited access to Pixie Sticks.

Not exactly ingredients for a NYTBSA (which was what I longed to become).

This meant I needed to fire my muse. She was too nice and resembled my grandma who gave me all the candy I wanted and told me to take lots of naps. Instead, I had to hire Samuel L. Jackson who yells at me and is unafraid to make me cry.

Most of all, I had to jump into the deep. The more I blogged, the better my writing. The more haters I got, the tougher my skin (and the more SLJ Muse yelled at me and promised to bust a cap in my @$$). The more I trained, the more disciplined I became, but this never would have happened in the shallows.

So TODAY. Define your DEEP (and maybe hand your muse a pink slip). Then, while you pursue YOUR DEEP remember talk is cheap and failure is priceless. Keep pressing and moving forward with your eyes on the beacon of flame (the goal). And hey, unlike me? You have help, a team.

We are not alone 😀 .

What are your thoughts? Do you struggle with doubt? Distraction? What distracts you most and why? Is it fear you might really do something remarkable? Are you afraid of failure? Have you overcome that fear? What is your deep? Does it have a name? Have you even taken time to ponder what it is?

Do you need to fire your muse? Who would you replace him or her with? Inquiring minds want to know!

I love hearing from you!

For the month of September, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

NEW CLASSES FOR SEPTEMBER AND MORE!

All classes come with a FREE recording!

We’ve added in classes on erotica/high heat romance, fantasy, how to write strong female characters and MORE! Classes with me, with USA Today Best-Selling Author Cait Reynolds, award-winning author and journalist Lisa-Hall Wilson, and Kim Alexander, former host of Sirius XM’s Book Radio. So click on a tile and sign up!

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